My
wife and I were in Wisconsin last weekend for a Son's of Confederate
Veterans dinner. On Sunday morning before we started for home, I happened
to see a copy of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Usually when we are out
of town, I try to look at the local papers where we are to get a feel for
what is going on in that area.

The
article that caught my eye on the paper's front page was one about funding
for government schools in Wisconsin. The article said: "State funding
for public schools - which consumes by far the biggest slice of state tax
money - will not be cut under the budget proposal Gov. Scott McCallum is
preparing to send to the legislature." Even though there is a
projected $1.1 billion state budget shortfall, the governor has basically
left government school funding untouched. And he is on record for saying
the state's economic vitality hinges on 'quality schools.' I found that
rather interesting in light of the headline right next to this article on
the front page of the Journal Sentinel. That headline said: "State's
spending binge gives taxpayers a hangover."

Wisconsin,
like most states, has suffered from recession and struggled economically,
especially since September 11th of last year. Anyone even superficially
keeping tabs on the economy recently has to have noted the big companies
that are going under, and the other big companies that are managing to
stay afloat only by laying off thousands of workers around the country.
With everything else suffering, funding for the government's schools can
not be reduced - that must remain solidly in place, and even increased, if
the politicians can find some way of doing it without being lynched by
irate taxpayers.

Some may
wonder, with all the other cutbacks, why the government schools are
permitted to carry on like 'gangbusters' with no corresponding reductions
in their budgets. Although the naive may not grasp it, there is one prime
reason for this - the government schools do not [and have not ever]
existed to educate. They exist to indoctrinate, to subtly prepare their
students to be good little consumers and willing participants in the
coming New World Order. If you doubt that, I would challenge you to read
some of the 'history' books being used to perform educational lobotomies
on government school students.

Further,
should you care to do more homework, you can go back and read some
biographies of some of the early-day founders of government education in
this country. For instance, there are: Horace Mann, the Unitarian; Robert
Owen the socialist; Robert Dale Owen, the atheist who later converted to
Spiritualism; and Amos Bronson Alcott, the 'meandering Transcendentalist'
who was a big fan of John Brown the Abolitionist/terrorist of Harpers
Ferry, Virginia fame. These men, and others of their ilk, were all prime
movers in promoting government education in its early days. As early as
1813, Robert Owen wrote: "It follows that every state, to be well
governed, ought to direct its chief attention to the formation of
character, and that the best governed state will be that which shall
possess the best system of national education." What Owen stated
almost 200 years ago now, is exactly what the government schools in this
country have been doing since their inception--interfering in the home and
family life in their attempt to form characteristics and a mindset in
their students that will be acceptable to the state.

Needless
to say, this is not one of the legitimate functions of constitutional
government in this country and the idea of the government forming the
national mindset via 'education' is hardly scriptural. In Holy Writ, the
family is the building block of all society - not the state's education
system - yet the state has usurped that power, and most families, because
they have purposely been educated in ignorance in their government school
days, willingly go along with it, knowing no better.

It galls
me no end to hear Christians defending the 'conservative' government
school systems in their locality and telling people they should put their
children into it. I have several Christian friends that are or have been
public school teachers, and even though they work in that system, they
realize what it is, and none of them defends it uncritically. They attempt
to educate children committed to their charge in spite of the system, not
because of it.

There are
many parents in this country that realize how bad the government schools
are, and they remove their children from them and attempt to teach them at
home - a noble effort, and something more should be doing - yet some of
them, having been 'educated' in government schools themselves, lack the
capacity to give their children more than they received - and that lack is
by design, not accident. The government school system wants no competition
and it wants no families out there with strong Christian convictions that
will teach their children to think independently. That is a no-no! Those
who learn to think might question - and if enough think and question, the
government's brain laundries might be in danger of losing their influence
on society. Years ago, a columnist I read stated that the government
schools are little more than an experiment in state socialism. I totally
agree with him. Unfortunately, until more Christians learn the truth, we
will continue to wallow in the state-designed morass we are in - and we
will continue to pay through the nose for doing it.